I hope that by now, everybody knows that Debra Milke, previously convicted and inprisoned in Maricopa County, AZ, for contracting the murder of her young son, has been exonerated.
We’ve posted about the Debra Milke case on this blog several times previously. In chronological order – here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. (The red link is particularly germane to the subject of this post.)
Pursuant to her wrongful conviction, wrongful imprisonment (22 years on death row), and eventual exoneration, Debra filed suit with five claims against four defendants, including two former Phoenix police officers and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (Bill Montgomery), stating that that she was denied a fair trial and due process of law. The two police officers and the Maricopa County Attorney filed a motion with the court to dismiss the suit. Judge Roslyn O. Silver of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona has denied the motion to dismiss, and is allowing the suit to go forward.
See the story from azcentral here.
You can read the decision by Senior United States District Judge Roslyn O. Silver here: 97-OrderreMotionstoDismiss
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Michael Hannon was accused of sexual assault by a 10 year old neighbour, in 1997. He was convicted and yet in 2006, his accuser came forward and retracted her statement, confessing that she had made a false allegation. Despite this, the Ministry of Justice ‘lost’ Hannon’s case files. It was not until 2009 that he was able to have his case certified as a miscarriage of justice. The Ministry and Hannon have now reached an out-of-court settlement after his claim for compensation went to the High Court. The case is a stark example of what can happen when police pursue allegations in spite of a total lack of evidence. This failure was compounded by incompetence on behalf of the prosecutors and Ministry of Justice staff who not only ‘lost’ his file for 15 months, but continued to protest against his case being declared a miscarriage of justice.
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Wrongful Convictions Blog 